Defending Israel
Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system fires to intercept a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel near Ashdod, Israel August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun |
"This was a very narrow tactical operation with limited targets and a huge tactical success. But there is no real change in the situation in Gaza and it did not relieve the problems of the Palestinian system which is controlled by the Hamas terror group. The lack of strategy and vision for a solution of the conflict has still not changed and this is the challenge that Israel is facing.""We saw the capabilities of the PIJ — one of the weakest terrorist groups surrounding Israel — which don’t really match the defense capabilities of the Iron Dome""The military capabilities of PIJ are now dramatically beneath the level of the capabilities of Hamas."Tamir Hayman, Managing Director, Institute for National Security Studies"[It will take some time for the PIJ to rebuild its leadership structure and train the next generation]. That said there is a risk that there could be a hydra that grows in its place.""A more centralized leadership structure could follow. One could potentially imagine multiple nodes that would sprout up in its place with multiple cells and with multiple leaders which would make it harder for Israel to dismantle it.""The primary funder, trainer and provider of arms is Iran, and its ability to provide all of that to Islamic Jihad, as well as Hamas and others, has not diminished in the least. This means that future clashes are a foregone conclusion.""Israel’s near-total intelligence dominance over the last week probably sent something of a stark message to both Hamas, and perhaps Hezbollah and maybe Iran as well, that Israel has the ability to strike at the top leadership and to do significant damage without a lot of protracted battle.""Whether that changes their calculus is another story, but it’s the thought that all proxies could bog Israel down in a painful conflict — I think they learned that the opposite was true."Jonathan Schanzer, Middle East scholar, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants gather at a mourning house for Palestinians who were killed during Israel-Gaza fighting, as a ceasefire holds, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 8, 2022. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa |
Israeli
intelligence had firm information that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a
proxy militia of Iran's hoping to become as influential and lethal and
as useful to the Islamic Republic as Hezbollah has been and continues to
be, was planning another attack on Israeli military units or on an
Israeli border town. The IDF and the Israeli government have been
anticipating a violent response of some kind from PIJ following the
arrest of one of its top leaders, in the West Bank.
Following
days of tense expectation, a convoy of PIJ trucks making its way to the
border inspired the IDF to a preemptive strike, one targeting yet
another leader of the Islamist group. A series of rockets from Gaza
followed, hundreds aiming for Israeli towns and villages. In Sderot, a
constant PIJ and Hamas target, a family escaped death when a rocket
levelled their home. The IDF bombed identified PIJ munitions sites and
buildings.
When
an apartment building came under target, all residents were first
instructed to vacate the building. Palestinian journalists gathered to
watch the precision targeting of the building. While the IDF and Gaza's
secondary terrorist group were engaged in combat, Hamas made no effort
to intervene or to join the conflict. Although Hamas rules Gaza, the PIJ
competes with them for influence and power, no doubt leading Hamas to
leave the PIJ on its own. Any major losses sustained by PIJ is a win for
Hamas.
As
for teaching terrorist groups through the IDF's swift and unequivocal
action to defang the threat of a terrorist group with clarity, dispatch
and accuracy, even to the extent of pinpoint targeting of their leaders,
the unfortunate truth is that terrorist groups are inflamed with the
passion of hatred of a designated enemy balanced with love of violence
and the meting out of death in the delusion of martyrdom; that they
might take a reasonable lesson in caution from the event is unlikely.
What
the violence did succeed in revealing was the presence within Israel
itself of a third column of Israeli Palestinian citizens who cheered
wildly when PIJ rockets managed to reach central Israel.
All
together a dozen PIJ members were targeted and put out of commission,
two senior commanders included. The Israeli army destroyed a number of
PIJ military emplacements, destroying underground tunnels across Gaza,
in the process. Reality? The tunnels will be rebuilt. The military sites
will be reestablished.
Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system fires to intercept a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg |
Over
1,100 rockets were fired by PIJ toward Israel throughout three days of
fighting. 990 of the rockets crossed into Israel; 200 misfired, ending
up within Gaza, causing a number of civilian casualties, including the
death of Palestinian children. The Iron Dome defence missile system shot
down 380 missiles for a 96 percent success rate.
All
of this, with thousands of Gaza residents given work permits to enter
Israel for gainful employment. Israel's Friday strike of the Islamic
Jihad leader followed by its Saturday targeted strike on a second leader
should amply demonstrate the vulnerability of terrorist leadership to
Israel's intelligence capabilities coupled with its capacity for
pinpoint-accuracy strikes.
Khaled
Mansour the second PIJ commander killed was hit in an airstrike in the
Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza where two other terrorists were
killed as well. The three-storey building was flattened when struck by
the missile, but some deaths of Palestinians during the three-day round
of fighting were caused by rocket fire that went awry, a not-uncommon
occurrence with rockets lobbed off by both PIJ and Hamas.
PIJ lost its two most senior commanders on the ground, Tayseer Jaabari
and Khaled Mansour, as well as sites used to manufacture and store
missiles, command headquarters and outposts. The IDF says it hit 170
PIJ targets. Reuters |
Labels: Conflict, Defence, Gaza, IDF, Israel Palestinian Islamic Jihad
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